Re: Re: new work: gloriousninth flaming

Dear Christina

5/21/04 20:30Christina [email protected]

>>>> http://www.gloriousninth.com/flaming.html
>>>>
>>>> Glorious Ninth
>>>> Flaming (our/your/their rage) 2004
>Re the complex concept of beautiful…

I'm sorry that its taken a while to respond to your post, but I am largely
unfamiliar with Bracha Ettinger's work, and its taken me a few days of
reading and re-reading these excerpts to get a sense of her ideas. I'm a
bit blown away by them actually. It feels like I've found what I didn't
know I was missing. They've provoked in me an extraordinarily strong
intuitive and emotional response, and I just want to go and read more.

kindest regards,
Kate
G9

http://www.gloriousninth.com



> Bracha Ettinger recently wrote several posts on trauma, beauty, war and
> artistic practice for the <underfire> project hosted by Jordan Crandall.
>
> I would like to quote her here because I think this issue of what beauty is
> and does in a time of war is fascinating and certainly points to your work
> at gloriousninth.
>
>> War is not this instant event that creates just instant reactions of instant
>> feeling that of necessity will produce art. War is always
>> shockingly instant but also traumatizing in the long run and for the
>> generations to come.
>>It creates vagues and vibrations on many levels and art
>> is involved with its chords on so many different levels. Instant reactions
>> are
>> important, but they are not necessarily art, even when they are translated
>> into images made by artists and signed as art.


>>Paul Celan's poetry was not
>> born in the same day, nor in the day after the event. So perhaps when you
>> look
>> in the day after for poetry you see nothing of this order. There, where art
>> becomes, layer of layers of traces, conscious and unconscious, are working
>> through.

> …….
>
>> We are carrying in this second half of the twentieth century enormous
>> traumatic weight, and wit(h)nessing in/by art brings it to culture

Dear Kate and all,

>
> On 5/25/04 12:27 PM, "Kate Southworth" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Christina
>>
>> 5/21/04 20:30Christina [email protected]
>>
>>>>>> http://www.gloriousninth.com/flaming.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Glorious Ninth
>>>>>> Flaming (our/your/their rage) 2004
>>> Re the complex concept of beautiful…
>>
>> I'm sorry that its taken a while to respond to your post, but I am largely
>> unfamiliar with Bracha Ettinger's work, and its taken me a few days of
>> reading and re-reading these excerpts to get a sense of her ideas. I'm a
>> bit blown away by them actually. It feels like I've found what I didn't
>> know I was missing. They've provoked in me an extraordinarily strong
>> intuitive and emotional response, and I just want to go and read more.
>>
>> kindest regards,
>> Kate
>> G9
>>
>> http://www.gloriousninth.com
>>

Wow, its great to discover common ground (even if so shifting, so hard to
sort out, so dark).

Yes, Bracha is on to something important, that is pretty hard to talk about.


Some observations that have meant a lot to me regarding trauma and the
function of the work of art come from Hal Foster… specifically, in "This
Funeral is for the Wrong Corpse," in Design and Crime, London and New York:
Verso, 2003 pp. 130f. He writes on an installation by Robert Gober and the
things he says, as well as the work of Gober itself, illuminate the
'trauma/beauty' aesthetic that arises from the current horrible mix of
amnesia, racism, sexual trauma and violence going on in the Iraqi war.

Hal Foster touches on a kind of delay, or lag in the evocation of traumatic
experience–"this paradoxical modality – of experience that is not
experienced, at least not punctually, that comes too early or too late to be
registered consciously, that can only be repeated compulsively or pieced
together after the fact…" (p. 131)>

He reminds us of the novels of Ian McEwan, Toni Morrison, and the films of
Atom Egoyan, among others.

I too 've tried to make art about this in installation and in net art on
<http://www.naxsmash.net>. I have tried to write about this also
<http://www.naxsmash.net/public_html/texts/McPheeNaxsmash_files.htm> I work
with the poetry of Paul Celan for noflightzone with similar motives
(<http://www.naxsmash.net/noflightzone/texthtml/noflightzone.html>)


From Foster's pov as a critic to Bracha as therapist/artist, I triangulate a
another couple of questions or desires about the process of making art in
this condition of trauma.

So far as I know Bracha is the only observer who has carried this notion of
delay, this 'too early, too late' further into an inquiry into the creative
process dynamic between trauma, oblivion, retreat, witness and beauty. I
think it's cool to listen to her voice a bit more fully at this moment.
Here again Is Bracha on the underfire list, from March 29, 2004:

it is indeed possible that
> some kinds of work need another kind of time to be effective, and that
> curators are missing the less-instant NOW in their rush for the INSTANT now.
> War is not this instant event that creates just instant reactions of instant
> feeling that of necessity will produce art. War is always
> shockingly instant but also traumatizing in the long run and for the
> generations to come. It creates vagues and vibrations on many levels and art
> is involved with its chords on so many different levels. Instant reactions are
> important, but they are not necessarily art, even when they are translated
> into images made by artists and signed as art. Paul Celan's poetry was not
> born in the same day, nor in the day after the event. So perhaps when you look
> in the day after for poetry you see nothing of this order. There, where art
> becomes, layer of layers of traces, conscious and unconscious, are working
> through.
>
> We are carrying in this second half of the twentieth century enormous
> traumatic weight, and wit(h)nessing in/by art brings it to culture

HI Kate and others
I agree that this looks both interesting and
pertinent..well.. to a point because I do not
understand what
<We are carrying in this second half of the
twentieth century enormous
traumatic weight, and wit(h)nessing in/by art
brings it to culture

On 26 May 2004, at 00:42, Michael Szpakowski wrote:

> What the fuck does wit(h)nessing mean?

Have you tried f***ing thinking about it?

> This sort of obscurantism is really a blight on what
> seems like an interesting set of notions trying to
> escape!

It seems like it is (regarded as) a necessary use of language to
express an interesting set of notions.

> I refuse to believe that what is of worth in there
> cannot be expressed more directly - it does seem to
> have a bearing on the intentions and the mechanics of
> your work & especially the latest, pity its not
> expressed more clearly.

I don't think you mean "directly", that would be hard to get in an
email, perhaps a scream would be better. I think you mean "clearly and
simply". Which is fine for a VCR manual but often useless for art.
Paraphrasing meaning can lose meaning. I dislike language games for the
sake of it, but this seems to be for the sake of meaning. Give it the
benefit of the doubt and see what emerges.

- Rob.

— Rob Myers <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 26 May 2004, at 00:42, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
>
> > What the fuck does wit(h)nessing mean?
>
> Have you tried f***ing thinking about it?
yes





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On Wednesday, May 26, 2004, at 07:25AM, Rob Myers <[email protected]> wrote:

>On 26 May 2004, at 00:42, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
>
>> What the fuck does wit(h)nessing mean?
>
>Have you tried f***ing thinking about it?

It was early. I was rude. I apologise. I meant to protest at your choice of words, not be an unfunny git.

Sorry.

- Rob.

Actually, Rob, I agree with the methodology proposed
in your reply -I try to make it my watchword -"as
complex as is necessary to do justice to the topic but
no more so"
- I felt those bounds were signally overstepped in the
extract concerned but I agree (& I did try to say
this) there is something interesting being said there.
best
michael
— Rob Myers <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, May 26, 2004, at 07:25AM, Rob Myers
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >On 26 May 2004, at 00:42, Michael Szpakowski wrote:
> >
> >> What the fuck does wit(h)nessing mean?
> >
> >Have you tried f***ing thinking about it?
>
> It was early. I was rude. I apologise. I meant to
> protest at your choice of words, not be an unfunny
> git.
>
> Sorry.
>
> - Rob.
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